Eco-restoration mission to free Vrindavan of green scourge
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Armed with necessary sanctions and approvals, officials have zeroed in on Sunrakh reserve forest area in the heart of Vrindavan for the launch. And for a good reason.
"This is the very spot where Lord Krishna had humbled the hydra-headed serpent-demon Kalia in a pond by stomp-dancing on his hoods. The water body still exists and next to it flows the Yamuna which, according to mythology, had turned toxic due to the poisonous emissions of the serpent," claims divisional forest officer (DFO), Mathura, Rajani Kant Mittal.
The project, with due sanction from the apex court, aims at rooting out the modern-day green scourge, P Juliflora. For the last few decades, this species, a toxic foreign invader, has been silently destroying the indigenous flora and fauna, endangering the lives of cattle, rendering the soil infertile and causing an alarming spurt in malaria cases in Braj region.
Considering sustained apathy towards this environmental hazard by successive regimes and the alarming situation on ground, the department, on the instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, had sought the Supreme Court's permission to carry out an extensive eradication drive in 2023.
In Aug 2023, a centrally empowered committee headed by Amarnath Shetty visited the area. After CEC's approval, a bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Sanjay Krishna Kaul and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia finally gave the department a go-ahead on Dec 12, 2023.
"The follow-up meant enumeration of every sapling in the landscape covering 487 hectares, soil sample collection, photography and drone survey, preparation of technically feasible site-specific blueprints and working plans, assorted mandatory clearances from the govt of India, and finally budgetary allocation.
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Now, with all boxes ticked, we are ready for the plunge," says Mittal.
"Interestingly, the inspiration behind the drive is Acharya Narayan Bhatta, a 14th century scholar and author of Shri Brajabhakti Vilas. The treatise vividly describes 137 Puranic vans spread across Mathura-Vrindavan. However, barring four, the rest have simply vanished," says principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) Sunil Chaudhary.
"After much research, we have successfully located 37 such forests. Again, instead of the native Krishna Kadamb, goolar, tamal, maulshree, peelu, palash, arjun, peepal and banyan, every site we found was totally overrun by Juliflora," he says.
"The present drive is arguably the largest such eradication of invasive flora and eco-restoration drive in the country," claims state forest minister Arun Kumar Saxena.
"The three-phased exercise will cost Rs 90 crore. It mandates not only to weed out Juliflora but also replace it with Krishna Kali species, according to the wish of the Chief Minister. The govt is also planning to take up Kanpur, Hardoi and Hathras later this year. The Forest Research Institute (FRI) is already preparing a report for us," he says.
(Writer is a senior journalist)
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